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Work Around for Running Color w/Graphics Card that has 64mb VRAM?

S

salilsundresh

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 11, 2005
267
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Before upgrading to Leopard I was able to run Color in Tiger on my Powermac G5 that has a video card with only 64mb VRAM (see specs at bottom). Now I am in a bit of a crunch and have some footage that was shot using auto white-balance that I'm hoping Color will help me fix by using it's auto color correction feature. (I have pure white objects in the background, so I don't think it should be that difficult to auto color correct every frame, just processor intensive) When I open up Color in Leopard it gives me the message: "Color recommends that your system have 128mb of VRAM; this system has only 64MB of VRAM." Here's a link to the window that popped up:
http://salsunproductions.com/misc/color_error.jpg
Anyways I was wondering if there was some sort of work-around so I could just jump in and get this project done in Color and out the door. I don't have the time to go out and find out where to purchase my next graphics card. Also, if there is any other application, or plug-in for Final Cut Studio 2 that might be able to help me do auto-color correction I would appreciate any suggestions. (yes, I can keyframe the whole video in final cut's 3 way color corrector but that would take forever since the white balance changes ever 3 seconds.)

Powermac G5 dual 1.8ghz, 1.25 gb ram, GeForce FX 5200 64MB VRAM Mac OS X (10.5.1) Final Cut Studio 2.0.2
 
salilsundresh said:
Before upgrading to Leopard I was able to run Color in Tiger on my Powermac G5 that has a video card with only 64mb VRAM (see specs at bottom). Now I am in a bit of a crunch and have some footage that was shot using auto white-balance that I'm hoping Color will help me fix by using it's auto color correction feature. (I have pure white objects in the background, so I don't think it should be that difficult to auto color correct every frame, just processor intensive) When I open up Color in Leopard it gives me the message: "Color recommends that your system have 128mb of VRAM; this system has only 64MB of VRAM." Here's a link to the window that popped up:
http://salsunproductions.com/misc/color_error.jpg
Anyways I was wondering if there was some sort of work-around so I could just jump in and get this project done in Color and out the door. I don't have the time to go out and find out where to purchase my next graphics card. Also, if there is any other application, or plug-in for Final Cut Studio 2 that might be able to help me do auto-color correction I would appreciate any suggestions. (yes, I can keyframe the whole video in final cut's 3 way color corrector but that would take forever since the white balance changes ever 3 seconds.)

Powermac G5 dual 1.8ghz, 1.25 gb ram, GeForce FX 5200 64MB VRAM Mac OS X (10.5.1) Final Cut Studio 2.0.2
Click to expand...

Looks like this is a warning message... it doesn't say it won't let you continue, it says that it recommends you don't continue. Have you tried it?
 
salilsundresh said:
When I hit continue, it just quits. I can't launch Color.
Click to expand...

Can you get into any configuration menus? I have never used Color, but I see from the product specs Apple claims the use of a high amount of VRAM is only necessary for "32bit rendering". That implies that it's possible to turn on 16bit rendering.

If it's not possible, perhaps you can borrow someone's card? I would also look for .plist files for color on the harddrive and open them up and read through and see if there's any variable you can modify to make Color think it only needs 64MB of VRAM to function. ( This works for Keynote, which IIRC that also won't let you run unless you have a certain amount of VRAM, even though it will work fine without "enough" )

Sorry I can't look for the .plist files myself, I don't have color.
 
Just use the Color Corrector or 3-Way Color Corrector Filter. You can correct for white balance and make other adjustments. It's fast, intuitive, and real-time. I never rely on it for broadcast work but I can get very close when using scopes.
 
theWholeTruth said:
Just use the Color Corrector or 3-Way Color Corrector Filter. You can correct for white balance and make other adjustments. It's fast, intuitive, and real-time. I never rely on it for broadcast work but I can get very close when using scopes.
Click to expand...

This would be extremly tedious, which I'm hoping to avoid. (key framing color correction every 2-3 seconds is not very fun)
 
Hate to break it to you, but Color Correction, imo, is tedious work.

There is no magic button in Color that will continously correct for white balance changes.

What you need to accomplish can be done with the filters I mentioned without keyframing. Read the manual on how to use those filters and visit some pro forums for more tips (kenstone.net has some good tips).
 
theWholeTruth said:
Hate to break it to you, but Color Correction, imo, is tedious work.

There is no magic button in Color that will continously correct for white balance changes.

What you need to accomplish can be done with the filters I mentioned without keyframing. Read the manual on how to use those filters and visit some pro forums for more tips (kenstone.net has some good tips).
Click to expand...

I don't understand what your talking about, all you mentioned was the 3 way color corrector, this is not automatic color correction. I know Avid has intelligent color correction aka auto color correction, why not FCP?? let alone Color for that mater?
http://www.avid.com/video/xpressDemos/index.asp?currVideo=5
 
You should ask why FCE doesn't have that feature, not FCP. Avid Express Pro is more like FCE and FC Studio is closer to Avid Media Composer.

What pro in their right mind would use auto-CC? Maybe try iMovie?
 
bigbossbmb said:
You should ask why FCE doesn't have that feature, not FCP. Avid Express Pro is more like FCE and FC Studio is closer to Avid Media Composer.

What pro in their right mind would use auto-CC? Maybe try iMovie?
Click to expand...

Ocassionally, a professional may receive poorly shot footage...ie: auto white balance. I guess I'll see if iMovie does it, but I doubt it would correct every frame and probably doesn't let me import Tiff image sequences.
 
salilsundresh said:
I don't understand what your talking about, all you mentioned was the 3 way color corrector, this is not automatic color correction. I know Avid has intelligent color correction aka auto color correction, why not FCP?? let alone Color for that mater?
http://www.avid.com/video/xpressDemos/index.asp?currVideo=5
Click to expand...
If the color balance is changing w/in the shot then I don't think any sort of auto-CC will help. In the video example the Avid did CC between different shots but it didn't don't different CC w/in each shot. For example, if the beginning of a shot is too blue and the end of the shot is too orange I don't think the software can auto-keyframe to the CC filter to compensate for fluctuating white balance values w/in a shot.


bigbossbmb said:
You should ask why FCE doesn't have that feature, not FCP. Avid Express Pro is more like FCE and FC Studio is closer to Avid Media Composer.
Click to expand...
Avid Xpress Pro is closer to FCP than it is to FCE, FWIW. TV shows and docs get cut on AXP, but I haven't heard of anyone using FCE professionally.


Lethal
 
LethalWolfe said:
If the color balance is changing w/in the shot then I don't think any sort of auto-CC will help. In the video example the Avid did CC between different shots but it didn't don't different CC w/in each shot. For example, if the beginning of a shot is too blue and the end of the shot is too orange I don't think the software can auto-keyframe to the CC filter to compensate for fluctuating white balance values w/in a shot.



Avid Xpress Pro is closer to FCP than it is to FCE, FWIW. TV shows and docs get cut on AXP, but I haven't heard of anyone using FCE professionally.


Lethal
Click to expand...

Good point, but I was thinking about importing everything as tiff files and trying that. I wonder if it would work?
 
Salilsundresh, Do you have access to Photoshop? If so, you could use Automator to make a custom image correction apple script utilizing Photoshop. Simply run it on a pile of exported tiff frames and let Photoshop do all the work.

JohnMC
 
Hack to get Color to run on Leopard with 64 MB of video

color.plist contains 1 entry only:
skipMRCcheck
A boolean which displays the *warning message* of a video card under 128MB. If set to 'Yes', color quits directly when opened if less than 128Mb.
To get that thread resolved, can someone look into getting color to work on 64Mb video cards Leopard
The interesting work around so far are not the one I am looking for. I am looking for one that gets color to run on Leopard 64 Mb.:cool:
Thanks all
 
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